Warning: the descriptions of those screenshots on the site contain potentially significant spoilers, both of a plot location and a story element itself (far more than the shots themselves, because they're pretty generic from a purely visual point of view).

- Ash

I hope I didn't spoil anything you didn't want to know. Both things have been mentioned in the early previews and seem to be major elements of the game. Unless you're under a total information blackout of the game, I think they'd both be difficult to avoid learning about.

thankfully I pulled those up on my iphone and didn't zoom in on the text, so all I saw were some guys in armor and.... you know, I can't even remember the other picture

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

I hope I didn't spoil anything you didn't want to know. Both things have been mentioned in the early previews and seem to be major elements of the game. Unless you're under a total information blackout of the game, I think they'd both be difficult to avoid learning about.

Meh, I'm not likely to hunt you down and murder you over it, unless I wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something tomorrow.

I just know there are some people who are in total blackout mode about the game, so I figured I'd toss out a warning for their sake. The location isn't really much of an issue but the other detail they give away could be a bit of a surprise.

I hope I didn't spoil anything you didn't want to know. Both things have been mentioned in the early previews and seem to be major elements of the game. Unless you're under a total information blackout of the game, I think they'd both be difficult to avoid learning about.

Meh, I'm not likely to hunt you down and murder you over it, unless I wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something tomorrow.

I just know there are some people who are in total blackout mode about the game, so I figured I'd toss out a warning for their sake. The location isn't really much of an issue but the other detail they give away could be a bit of a surprise.

- Ash

then there's sites like Joystiq where they splash what the screen is about in big bold letters across the headline. of course I'm not sure who would find what it's about surprising; I thought it was a forgone conclusion.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

- Some of Shepard's new melee moves in general include the usual punches, kicks, and class specific moves. There's also movement related rolls, a SWAT turn, and dives into cover.

- More varied combat environments, with more things happening in them. For example, there will be instances of civilians in combat zones, fights happening in the distance, etc.

- Confirmed a new planet scanning system.

- Space battles possible, but unconfirmed right now.

- The Engineer class can now build turrets.

- Combat rhythm is described to be about 10%-15% faster overall. Sounds like this is due to Shepard, Teammates, and Enemies being much more maneuverable.

- No vehicles from previous ME games (Mako and Hammerhead) will return. Instead, we're getting all new vehicles, yes, that means more than one.

- There will be a digital comic, like the PS3 version of ME2, that fills in the backstory and sets up what's happening. Let's hope they don't use Shepard's voice for narration this time, as the whole self introspective Shepard voice really didn't sound right.

Spoiler info, with locations you visit, your ship, and more:

Spoiler for Hiden:

- You'll visit London, New York, the Salarian home world.

- The Normandy SR2 is still around, however, it was taken by the Systems Alliance, taken apart, then rebuilt so they could figure out its construction and technology. Now it's sporting a Systems Alliance logo and paint scheme, along with new room configurations. Overall it still looks like the SR2.

- Reapers now come in many different sizes, all are pretty huge though, ranging from 200-300 meters, to the original 2 kilometer sizes of Soverign.

- The current rumor is the James Sanders is somehow related to Kahlee Sanders of the novels. Not sure if it's a brother or her son.

- Anderson may make a return as a combat capable character, early previews show him in Alliance military wear, sporting a military cap, but the devs have said that outfit is only a placeholder. Anderson has left his position in the council by this time and returned to the Systems Alliance. No word on Udina's status.

Anyone surprised? Anyone? You, in the back? Really? Oh, you have a question.... No, sorry, we're all out of toilet paper, can you hold it? No? Ok.... Just use jersoc's pillow case. It's the Justin Bieber one.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

When asked about the delay, EA boss John Riccitiello said, "Essentially, step by step, [BioWare is] adjusting some of the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 that can put this into a genre equivalent of shooter-meets-RPG, and essentially address a far larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 did and Mass Effect 2 began to approach."

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

The combat mechanics in ME1 and ME2 were fun, but they were also the weakest part of the game, so I'll be glad if they improve on them. There's no reason you can't have a game that's both a great shooter and a great RPG.

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"Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? To get to the same side." - The Big Bang Theory

I'm reading that last part as 'we're making the game more casual friendly', and considering how much I didn't care for the aerodynamicizing of ME2 and DA 2 that set off all kinds of warning bells. I'm glad I held off on pulling the pre-order trigger on D2D during the 25% off sale.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

Everything they've actually shown has them putting more RPG aspects back into the game in terms of character customization. If you didn't notice, ME2 was actually way way more shooter than RPG in the combat gameplay department. Balancing the "shooter-to-RPG" ratio would mean putting in more RPG elements, which it seems they're doing.

The main enhancements to the shooter gameplay seems to be making it so that the movement is on par with with games, instead of being so static. And make enemies more interesting to fight.

Sounds more like they're just taking the time to make sure those aspects work as intended. Traversal stuff like rolls between cover, swat turns, diving into or over cover while on the move, all actually take a lot of work to make sure they work properly in every circumstance. Especially so if they wanted to have more interesting battlegrounds to fight in.

3-4 months more from their original target of Holidays 2011 is not enough time to make any radical changes to the formula like people are freaking out about now. Instead, that's a good amount of time to do extra bug squashing and polish, along with implementing systems and story that had been already planned from the beginning but hadn't had time to be implemented until now.

Also, the writer who posted this was not one of the people who actually got to see the game, and taking one comment in the worst possible way he can imagine.

“One of the things that Ray Muzyuka and the team up in Edmonton have done is essentially step-by-step adjust the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you’ll see at E3 to put this in a genre equivalent to shooter-meets-RPG,” he said, “and essentially address a much larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 began to approach.

“We’re huge believers in the IP and are purposefully shifting it to address a larger market opportunity.”

Soo....is it okay to shout Doooooom now?! Larger Market Opportunities... Can you say CoD market share wannabees? Every damn game wants in on that juicy piece of meat, and while I can't fault them for it, I don't like what it does to many AAA titles.

I don't understand how you could dumb down ME series more... and still call it an RPG.

Adding more options and controls to combat, making it say Gears of War-ish in the control deptartment, wouldn't be dumbing it down, it'd be increasing the complexity. If that's the route they go, I approve. As stated, ME's shooting has been it's weakest aspect. Action combat has always been the weakest part of Bioware's games. They could use some help there, I really don't think they get it. They thought Jade Empire had a great fighting engine. It was like they had never played a fighting game.

Let's face it, even though ME2 improved the combat gameplay over ME1 by leaps and bounds, it's still really not on par with the latest shooters in terms of polish. The movement and animation is still pretty stilted, things like running, going in and out of cover, and other interesting moves are finicky or don't exist.

None of that stacks up to modern shooter. Thus it's really not equivalent to a shooter-meets-RPG right now because the shooter aspect needs work. Heck, even the RPG aspect needed work too, and they have that part covered with the new loot items, weapon customization, and new character customization.

It's getting to the point of absurdity how quickly people will jump on the sky is falling bandwagon from a few small quotes taken with no real context, especially when we have a full article pointing out ways that they've gone and improved the RPG aspects.

I'll be negative when they start talking about how they're handling paragon and renegade choices, the real meat of the story and role playing, and if they haven't made any improvements or changes to it, then I'll start clamoring for changes. My main gripe is that there's no interesting middle ground with those in ME1 and ME2, so that you're really only playing 2 versions of the story, the paragon or renegade version.

- No new Romance in ME3. Romances you've had from previous games will pay off, and there will be consequences for being unfaithful.

- Smaller pool of teammates than ME2, but more done with those in your crew.

- Every character will be back in some way.

- Will have some sort of save game generator for those coming into ME3 without an imported save.

- Biotics will be more useful, doing specific things like ripping combat shields out of opponents' hands to make them easier to attack.

- Combat areas will have more instances of multiple levels now. With a new class of enemy equipped with rocket boots that make use of them.

- Powers on a single class will now combine, example: "Soldier still has an arcing attack called Concussive Shot, but it now behaves differently depending on the ammo ugrade he/she is using. Cryo ammo lets you use that same trajectory to deliver a blast of ice that canfreeze every enemy in the area."

- Enemies are so much more varied that you will need to use those combinations and those of your teammates.